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Mon Mar 07, 2005 9:35 am

I have the Howe setup on my Thing with a ram driving the Saco Rack. We changed to longer lines from the servo when I pushed the beam out 3" and I thought we got all the air out - wrong. Now whenever I hit a big bump the front end starts shimmying uncontrollably until I clutch it, and then it settles back down.

Any ideas on how I can bleed this air out (assuming it is air)? I have removed the reservoir cap and rotated the wheel a ton with the motor running (per the Howe guy at the last Parker race) but still have the problem. Worked perfect before the longer lines were added. Suggestions gents?

Mon Mar 07, 2005 5:29 pm

We used a hydraulic set up in the Rhino RTV. Had a similar problem, but we did what you had previously mentioned. We left the cap of the tank and just ran the engine for 20 mins. It would still make some noise for the first 10 hours of running but mellow out after than. Just out of curiosity is there any high points or sharp turns in the lines where an air bubble could get stuck?

On another note, do you have any more pictures of your Thing? What size tires are you running up front and how much fender trimming did you do? I want to run a K/L front end on my Thing but I am worried about all the clearance problems with stock fenders and I don’t want to add a body lift since I don’t really like how they look.

Tue Mar 08, 2005 8:32 pm

I have 7.00 X 15 implement fronts on 3.5" Ultras. My car came with a T-Mag body lift. I am running the SoCal prerunner front fenders that I trimmed as my tires were way too close when we cycled the front end after cutting off the B/J pan head and building the new tube extension and 6" over beam, Kar Tek arms and coilovers. Shoot me your email and I can send you some pics (they are all hi-res and cannot load them here). My car rides really nice now. Totally satisfied with the results.

No sharp turns in any of my PS lines - everything flows really smooth front to back. Just back in from the garage fighting with it some more...

Tue Mar 08, 2005 9:36 pm

This might be the ultimate stupid response but did you recheck the toe-in when you put the front end back in? (it happened to us once, forgot to check the toe before a test run and it went totally out of control at 50mph. driver did a slight turn and flipped on its side on asphalt. The driver got two staples in his head from the emergency room.)

Wed Mar 09, 2005 8:44 am

We set the toe at 1/2" as the car is mainly run in the dirt - It drives just fine up to 65mph, that is until you hit a pothole or rut. Then the front end shaking starts...

I pulled it all apart again last night and re-bled everything. I have a single chamber Flowmaster on it so I figured I'd wait until this morning to run it much.

We'll see if it helps. Got some goods tips from a tech guy at Howe on the phone yesterday. With the amount of travel I'm getting and the large tie rods, I need to run the ram upside down (fittings down) to clear my lines and Howe thinks that may be the culprit... Going to Parker tomorrow for the weekend - hope she works.

Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:12 am

Weeelll,

After several trys (pull it apart, test, pull it apart, test...) everything seems to be back to normal. Loading up for Parker so we'll see how a weekend of bashing does for it...

Thanks for the suggestions. I ended up taking the ram off, flipping it over to bleed everything and run in, then reinstalling it back upside down. Working so far.

I better be leaving town 'cause I think my neighbors are putting together a posse!